A Fragile Union is Joan Nestle's collection of intimate essays and narratives about lesbian sexuality, butch-femme relationships, sex writing, the importance of preserving lesbian and gay history, the love between lesbians and gay men, and the "often-shaky camaraderie among lesbians that as community continues to flex its diversity." Longtime readers of Nestle's writings are familiar with her themes of unity and difference. In A Fragile Union, Nestle delves still deeper. Living with cancer, Nestle explores other "fragile unions": the fragility of her sexual desire in the face of her illness, the fragility of memory in the face of loss, and always in the face of fear, her belief in the possibility of hope, her love for her people—women, lesbians and gays, working class, and all who struggle against injustice.